Will Blockchain Startups Win Extreme Tech Challenge?

If you haven’t heard of Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC), you have been missing out on something super exciting and thrilling.

It is the world’s largest startup competition, and is currently holding its fifth edition. The move that is creating a buzz is that the competition has just announced their top ten finalists. Amidst the top ten, three of the startups use blockchain technology. All of these startups are contributing in certain ways to improve the society at large.

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They are competing for “global visibility and invaluable resources, with three finalists to pitch their ventures to a phenomenal panel of judges spearheaded by Sir Richard Branson.” Following are the blockchain companies that made the cut:

The first company is Liven, which is a rewards-based lifestyle payment platform, based out of Australia. This platform is essentially a payments platform. It connects users, merchants, charities in a smooth manner, enabling payments via blockchain. Through Liven, users can discover new experiences, pay bills and earn a meaningful reward, that can be used by them later across the entirety of the network, with a transparent dollar-value. Adding a hint of wholesome goodness to this , is the feature that allows the user to share the reward with a charity of their choosing.

Next up is the Last Of Ours, which is a project aimed at bringing people together to protect the planet’s endangered species and natural zones. This they aim to do by creating balanced and shared value between social entertainment and real-world impact. The team has created a digital mirror on the blockchain, and each unique token represents a real endangered animal living in the wild, one-to-one. The startup is based in Thailand.

The third startup is called BitLumens and is based out of Switzerland. This project provides decentralized power to rural communities with the help of blockchain. The rural communities that they select are not connected to the power line. With the use of blockchain, they can provide them a credit score. BitLumens also offers farmers solar home systems which can they can pay for in installments.

The final competition is all set to take place in January, after which the finalists will be narrowed down to three before. The winner will be announced on Branson’s Necker Island next April.